My Comments

The Spanish government recently stirred up the bullfight that represents the next-generation fibre-optic broadband market there.

Here, the CNMC who are the Spanish telecoms regulators “let the bulls out” by requiring Telefonica, the incumbent ex-PTT telco, to provide wholesale access to their fibre-to-the-premises network. There are only 66 locations that won’t require this wholesale access because they have three or more companies offering infrastructure-level competition using their own FTTP or HFC DOCSIS 3.0 cable-modem infrastructure.

The wholesale connectivity was to be in the form of “virtual unbundled local access” for the fibre connectivity along with wholesale access to copper infrastructure. But there was also a requirement that Telefonica had to allow competing service providers access to the “pits, pipes and poles” so that competing infrastructure providers can lay their infrastructure across the sun-drenched land that is Spain.

There was an increased take up of fibre-optic broadband service with 3.1 million home and other networks across the country connected to this technology by end of 2015. Movistar, Telefonica’s retail ISP brand had taken up 71.3% of these connections. This is while Orange (France Télécom) and Vodafone are providing the two other major alternatives. But the bulls kept running at the furious pace with no slowdown in connections thanks to this competition.

What has been achieved by the CNMC is wholesale unbundled access to the copper and fibre last-mile / “to-the-door” infrastructure along with allowing competitors to use the “pits, poles and pipes” to lay their infrastructure. But for this to work, there needs to be continual market surveillance to assure a thriving and competitive market across the country by keeping tabs on company mergers and acquisitions in this field.

For Spain, a question that needs to be raised is whether the Balearic “pleasure islands” like Ibiza (Café Del Mar) and Majorca have access to this kind of competitive service for their broadband Internet needs?